International River Basin Organizations Research Articles

Inclusive governance of hydropower on shared rivers? Toward an international legal geography of the Lower Mekong basin

Hydropower is now the largest source of renewable energy worldwide. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that current hydropower capacity will need to double by 2050 in order to transition to net zero and to arrest the rise of global temperatures at 1.5 degrees Celsius. Much of the currently built and planned dams are on rivers shared between two or more countries. This raises the risk of increased inter-state conflicts. However, to exploit hydropower peacefully, the impact on local communities must also be considered. This foregrounds the need to build inclusive institutions that can mediate the different interests, norms, and values held by communities located across different scales. The article examines the role of international river basin organizations to manage this legal pluralism in shared river basins. In many basins globally, such as the Lower Mekong, the Columbia, the Zambezi, or the Senegal, international river basin organizations are tasked with the development of shared water resources. To understand to what extent river basin organizations can mediate the legal pluralism in a shared basin, the article develops an international legal geography approach to the governance of transboundary waters in an attempt to uncover marginalization and disempowerment in the process of law-making. It therefore expands the analytical scope of legal geography to the study of transnational spaces, in this case complex ecosystems for which there are no fixed jurisdictional boundaries. It then applies this approach to the case study of the Lower Mekong basin. Findings indicate that the Mekong River Commission, despite attempts to include project-affected people in decision-making, largely operates within a Westphalian framework of sovereignty to the detriment of more inclusive forms of governance. Project affected communities are largely unable to exert influence and are relegated to participation in alternative forums. These forums, or counter publics as Yong called them, are disconnected from official processes. While they give rise to marginalized voices and enable the creation of inclusive and participatory spaces, the exclusionary official decision-making processes continue to produce significant tension and conflict potential as hydropower is championed globally as a clean, climate friendly form of energy. As hydropower is set to double by 2050, inclusive participatory institutions in basins worldwide must be built to navigate complex stakeholder interests and to benefit those who are otherwise likely to lose out in net zero transitions. These findings are relevant for other shared basins, particularly across Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America where hydropower is booming. An international approach to legal geography can foreground these hidden and marginalized voices and help identify ways to build inclusive institutions for the governance of shared resources.

Water, Culture and International Institutions

This article focuses on the integration of different values of water, ranging from intrinsic to emotional, in international treaties and transboundary organizations. After introducing the “four worlds of water” (Wolf 2017), we discuss the increased recognition of locally based cultural and spiritual values of water in global conventions, international freshwater treaties and regional river basin organizations. Global conventions generally use more technical and broad formulations and international treaties tend to focus on small geographic areas and the need to protect water, and environmental resources associated with water, while the cultural impacts of water management decisions on local communities are most apparent at the governance level of regional organizations.

Evolving together: transboundary water governance in the Colorado River Basin.

Transboundary collaboration between the United States (US) and Mexico in the Colorado River Basin has heightened in recent years, as climate change, population growth, and overallocation threaten the long-term stability of the region. Through a combination of document analysis and semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders, we examine patterns of change in the governance of the Colorado River, as the US and Mexico navigate socioeconomic, cultural, and political asymmetries to jointly share water over the past two decades. We ask: What key events and environmental agreements have influenced transboundary water governance in the Colorado River over the past 20 years? We draw on the rich scholarship on transboundary water governance, especially around international river basin organizations, to uncover patterns of engagement and collaboration over time. We focus on the binational scale with an eye to study governance at multiple scales including interactions and impacts at the national and subnational scales. Our findings illustrate how Mexico’s role has evolved from a narrow one following a strict interpretation of the 1944 Treaty toward a more creative partnership between the US and Mexico demonstrated in binational negotiations and the creation of joint solutions to emerging challenges around water conservation and ecological restoration. We find transboundary water governance in the basin is influenced by both long-term and short-term contextual changes that can inform strategies key actors employ to bolster institutional resilience and take advantage of opportunities for transformative change. Further, we find that the evolution of the binational relationship is reflected in changes in the negotiation process and structure, which highlights the importance of trust and relationship building, transparency, joint fact-finding, and information sharing to foster collaboration. However, we also find uneven institutionalization of stakeholder participation and transparency in engagement patterns that may ultimately, serve to hinder governance and cooperation in the basin.

Addressing knowledge gaps for transboundary environmental governance

Knowledge is widely considered a key ingredient for the effective and sustainable governance of the environment. In transboundary settings – i.e., where political boundaries cross natural resource system boundaries – there are considerable barriers to knowledge production and use. Resulting knowledge gaps can be barriers to governance. This research examines three case studies in which international river basin organizations, tasked with facilitating cooperation in transboundary river basins, recognized and addressed knowledge gaps to support governance of shared waters. We synthesize across the three case studies to develop a typology of knowledge gaps and the strategies used to address those gaps. In identifying common types of knowledge gaps and the on-the-ground strategies used to fill them, this research provides an important framework for assessing and theorizing knowledge at the transboundary scale, as well as useful recommendations and examples for practitioners seeking to develop that knowledge.

International river basin organizations, science, and hydrodiplomacy

As key venues for interaction and cooperation, international river basin organizations (IRBOs) are significant contributors to hydrodiplomacy in transboundary river basins. As part of their efforts to support hydrodiplomacy, IRBOs engage in the production and use of science. The manner in which that science is produced, and how it contributes to hydrodiplomacy, is not well understood. This paper examines the production and use of science by three IRBOs: the (US – Canada) International Joint Commission, the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, and the Mekong River Commission. We find the science produced by the IRBOs to support hydrodiplomacy extends beyond measuring and monitoring to include more advanced and analytical forms of science. In producing science, we observe that the IRBOs balance considerations of capacity, ownership, and how the politics of the basin will influence the production and use of the science. Given the challenge of balancing across these considerations, future research is needed to determine what mechanisms and processes for producing science can best facilitate its use in hydrodiplomacy.

Development of international river basin organizations and implication for China

Development of international river basin organizations and implication for China

Governing the Water-Energy-Food Nexus Related to Hydropower on Shared Rivers—The Role of Regional Organizations

An evolving literature on the Water-Energy-Food (WEF) nexus argues that there is a need to better understand the conditions under which nexus coordination may occur. A case in point are hydropower investments on shared rivers which might impact the provision of energy, water and food security across borders. In international basins, governing the WEF nexus impacts of hydropower relies on voluntary negotiations between the respective countries involved. It has been argued that such negotiations may be facilitated by regional organizations, such as international river basin organizations (IRBOs), but this claim has hardly been investigated systematically. Drawing on regime theory in international relations and the literature on benefit sharing, this paper asks what role regional organizations may play in governing hydropower-related WEF nexus impacts. It compares three cases of hydropower planning on shared rivers. The Rusumo Falls and the Ruzizi III hydropower projects (HPPs) are joint investments in Africa's Great Lakes region facilitated by an IRBO and a regional energy organization, respectively. On the Mekong, Laos is constructing the Xayaburi dam despite reservations by the Mekong River Commission and downstream riparians. The paper finds IRBOs and regional energy organizations may play a role in facilitating cross-border nexus governance by supporting benefit-sharing arrangements and by fostering the application of environmental and social safeguards and international law principles. However, it also shows that the influence of regional organizations varies, and how successfully they support nexus governance also depends on whether the HPP is planned unilaterally or jointly; the availability and consensus on data on nexus impacts; and the presence or absence of donors and private sector capital and investors.

Anchoring water diplomacy – The legal nature of international river basin organizations

Water diplomacy needs institutional anchoring. International River Basin Organizations (RBOs) – being the result of diplomatic efforts by riparian states intending to create a framework for cooperation between themselves over shared water bodies – can provide such institutional anchors. RBOs ensure that agreements to cooperate are turned into a long-term commitment by riparian states to jointly manage shared water resources and, in turn, foster mutually beneficial cooperation over time. RBOs have been the subject of detailed examinations of their conceptual core, of their manifold functions, of their effectiveness in achieving their goals and so forth. However, the legal nature of these entities has so far received limited attention notwithstanding its significance in empowering RBOs to act as institutional anchors for water diplomacy. Legitimate questions arise, for instance, in relation to their legal personality, or lack thereof, or to matters such as immunities and privileges. This paper will review key legal aspects of RBOs and illustrate them with examples. A sound understanding of such issues is crucial to supporting fruitful discussions between state members about the legal design of an RBO in order to fulfill their particular needs in the context of water diplomacy.

Flooding in African cities, scales of causes, teleconnections, risks, vulnerability and impacts

Understanding what can be done about flooding involves examining how everyday urban activities exacerbate flood risks, and how to reduce the inequitable exposure to flood risks at all scales from the individual household to national governments and international river basin management. Those who change the landscape in ways that make flooding worse are not usually those who suffer the consequences of such changes. Understanding of the inter-relations between both geophysical processes and human drivers and human victims at multiple scales is required. Teleconnections mean that the global, the rural and the urban all affect one another. Across Africa, as in other continents, flooding may arise locally within built-up areas from debris blocking streams and from overflowing sewers. Nevertheless, many cities are flooded by major rivers that carry extreme flows of water from surrounding regions and even distant mountains. The causes and impacts of floods, human vulnerability, possibilities of risk reduction and political and management responsibilities vary from the household and community levels up to sub-continental hydrologic systems and the global climate system. Co-ordinated action must take account of the differing scales of flood problems ranging from those arising from highly localised thunderstorms to the huge flood flows on major rivers produced by tropical cyclones. Urban flood management needs local, regional or national action at appropriate scales, with communities dealing with problems entirely with their areas, local governments acting on issues that are totally within their boundaries and national governments or international river basin organizations dealing with problems across many administrations.

Managing adaptation: international donors’ influence on international river basin organizations in Southern Africa

ABSTRACTToday, many of the world’s river and lake basins are threatened by environmental problems such as change in river flow, water pollution, reduced water availability, salt water intrusion, or loss of plant and animal species. International river basin organizations (RBOs) governing such rivers are increasingly in need to address such challenges. At the same time many of them receive technical and financial support from international donor organizations. The paper therefore addresses the question of how international donor institutions support adaptation capacities of RBOs. The aim is to identify conditions under which donor support to RBOs can support adaptation to environmental changes and improve the resilience of international water basins. It does so by focusing on two cases in Southern Africa, including the Orange-Senqu Basin and the Orange-Senqu River Commission as well as the Cubango-Okavango Basin and the Permanent Okavango River Basin Water Commission. The findings of the paper illustrate an ambivalent role of international donors with regard to river basin adaptation. While they do provide important means for adaptation in form of knowledge, financial and technical resources, they can, at the same time, threaten the long-term sustainability of adaptation activities.

Assessment of transboundary river basins for potential hydro-political tensions

Abstract This paper presents a systematic, global assessment of transboundary watersheds that identifies regions more likely to experience hydro-political tensions over the next decade and beyond based upon environmental, political, and economic indicators. The development of new water infrastructure in transboundary basins can strain relationships among fellow riparians as the impacts of new dams and diversions are felt across borders. Formal arrangements governing transboundary river basins, such as international water treaties and river basin organizations, provide a framework for dialogue and negotiation, thus contributing to assuaging potential disputes. Our study examines these two issues in tandem − the stresses inherent in development and the mitigating impact of institutions − and maps the risk of potential hydro-political tensions that exist where basins may be ill-equipped to deal with transboundary disputes triggered by the construction of new dams and diversions. We also consider several factors that could exacerbate those hydropolitical tensions in the near future, including changes in terrestrial water storage, projected changes in water variability, per capita gross national income, domestic and international armed conflicts, and recent history of disputes over transboundary waters. The study points to the vulnerability of several basins in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central America, the northern part of the South American continent, the southern Balkans as well as in different parts of Africa, where new water infrastructure is being built or planned, but formal transboundary arrangements are absent. Moreover, in some of these regions there is a concomitance of several political, environmental and socioeconomic factors that could exacerbate hydropolitical tensions. This study contributes to the understanding of how the recent proliferation of development accompanied with unfavourable socio-economic and environmental indicators may influence global hydropolitical resilience.

Many Faces of Security: Discursive Framing in Cross-border Natural Resource Governance in the Mekong River Commission

In the past decade, security has emerged as a new discourse in water governance beyond transboundary conflicts and cooperation. This paper will examine how security is framed in the context of international river basin organizations (RBOs), key regional organizations in transboundary water governance operating in many international river basins around the world. As an example of cross-border governance, RBOs can promote joint cooperation and information sharing, and serve as a form to bring together diverse stakeholders. This paper focuses on the discursive construction of ‘security’ in a particular context of cross-border river basin governance in the Mekong River Basin. We ask: How is security framed in the discourse of RBOs? We examine how diverse actors frame security in the context of RBOs and at various scales and around certain management actions in a case study of the Mekong River Commission, a well-established RBO. Attention will be paid to the links between water security, food security, and energy security in the broader water and development discourse. We analyze what the findings mean for cross-border governance more broadly.

Clearing the muddy waters of shared watercourses governance: conceptualizing international River Basin Organizations

Institutions that have been set up by riparian states to internationally govern shared water resources—international River Basin Organizations (RBOs)—play a key role in river basin governance. Despite an increased attention paid to RBOs in international relations and water scholarship, there has been little focus on defining and conceptualizing RBOs and, subsequently, on comprehensively identifying the RBOs that exist around the world. This has challenged research around RBOs in both methodological and theoretical ways. This paper aims to meet this challenge by offering a theoretically grounded definition of an international RBO and crafting a comprehensive list of international RBOs. We do so deductively, building from the larger neo-institutionalist research and international water resources governance literature. Our definition identifies three broad categories of constitutive elements: internationalization, institutionalization and governance. We apply this definition to potential cases to better identify the extent of RBOs around the world today and outline which cases qualify as RBOs and which cases fail to meet our constitutive criteria. This allows us to compile a comprehensive list of all existing international RBOs, including the identification of RBOs with specific characteristics. The article concludes by crafting an agenda for future research around RBOs that builds on this more complete understanding of RBOs.

Tools to improve the management of transboundary river basins for disaster risk reduction

This paper firstly presents a brief overview of the complex environment of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region in the context of disaster risk reduction (DRR), analyzing characteristics of the major hazards and actors involved. Secondly, it argues that the SADC Water Division and International River Basin Organizations (RBOs) in Southern Africa can play a crucial role in DRR in the water sector, providing a platform where agreements on data and information sharing are reached, best practices are exchanged, policies harmonized, new collaboration mechanisms are discussed, and coordinated interventions are decided upon. Moreover, RBOs can facilitate the adoption of basin-wide Integrated Water Resource Management plans, building on the pillars of economic efficiency, social equity and environmental sustainability with the result of reducing hazards and increasing resilience. RBOs can represent the shared interests of riparian states from a basin perspective to other international actors. To achieve these goals, RBOs in Southern Africa face significant challenges: broadening stakeholder participation, gaining buy-in from Member States on their representation and facilitation of specific matters. Possible approaches to overcome these challenges will be suggested in this paper.

River Basin Organizations in the Global Water Discourse: An Exploration of Agency and Strategy

This article describes the role of transnational policy entrepreneurs in producing and maintaining the global discourse of river basin organizations--a key element of global water governance. It takes agency approach and draws on three streams of literature--discourse analysis, political ecology, and political economy--to derive strategies that transnational actors may use to advance discourse. To illustrate agency and strategies, it draws from a wide variety in types of RBOs across the globe. It finds that global knowledge networks exhibit the most expansive reach, serving as the oil in the machine of the global RBO discourse. This finding raises important questions around networks in the broader global water governance discourse as well as compelling questions related to governance. KEYWORDS: river basin organizations, discourse, scale, politics, agency, transnational policy entrepreneurs, political ecology, political economy, networks. REFLECTING BROADER TRENDS IN GLOBAL GOVERNANCE AWAY FROM A SYSTEM of decisionmaking and collective action dominated by a few key intergovernmental institutions, global water governance may be seen as increasingly diffuse, heterogeneous, fragmented, and unpredictable. (1) Representing more of a multilevel arrangement that includes local, national, and basin levels, global water governance entails not only governments but also international nongovernmental organizations (ING0s), global knowledge networks, and private sector actors who formulate and implement policy and frame discourse at multiple and interrelated levels. (2) Through the development of knowledge, development assistance projects, global water meetings, and publications, these transnational actors shape global water discourse and governance. Central to global water governance are river basin organizations (RBOs) that are organized at the basin level to serve as forums to link various governance levels, including the local, national, and global. RBOs are on the rise globally today, increasingly promoted by transnational policy actors supporting good governance concepts in developing countries. (3) In the past two decades, both domestic and international RBOs have been established in virtually every region of the world. (4) As primary mechanisms for water governance, RBOs provide forums for critical water management issues, including conflicts around water quantity and quality as well as the use of water for human and environmental needs. (5) Despite the rise of RBOs and their importance to governance, the trajectory that this concept has traveled to reach its position of global prominence and the role of transnational policy actors in advancing and maintaining RBOs is relatively unknown. (6) We address this gap by examining transnational policy entrepreneurs and their strategies in the rise of the modern discourse around RBOs. We see discourse as an ensemble of ideas, concepts and categories through which meaning is given to social and physical phenomena, and which is reproduced through identifiable set of practices. (7) Unraveling the working of a discourse helps us to explore the debate, uncover which and whose agendas are being served, and ultimately offer pathways for strategic positioning of actors in the debates on water governance. Although there is rich literature on discourse theory and its application to the environment, no unified analytical framework exists for examination of the path through which discourses become dominant. (8) An agency approach, representing the ability to exercise authority and influence policy change, (9) suggests explicit attention to policy actors as change agents and their strategies as the means to instigate or block the RBO discourse. Through integration of several literatures, we identify particular strategies of transnational actors in water governance and apply this typology to illustrate how different actors make use of these strategies. …

International river basin organizations: variation, options and insights

Permanent international river basin organizations (IRBOs) come in many shapes and sizes, ranging from those which are mainly facilitative in nature to those empowered to act on their own. Although differences in IRBO types may have important impacts on transboundary water resources management, systematic analysis of variation in their structure and responsibilities is scant. This paper synthesizes and applies a typology to determine the structural composition, abundance, spatial distribution, scale and in-basin configurations of the different forms of IRBOs. The results provide a set of options for future IRBOs, and serve to ground-truth and nuance theoretical divisions between different types of organizations in transboundary basins.

Integration in the Management of International Waters: Economic Perspectives on a Global Policy Discourse

In recent years an emergent global policy discourse has promoted the concept of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as a strategy for the sustainable management of international waters. However, integration remains a considerable challenge in large international river basins. This article addresses the relevance of the global discourse on IWRM, asking how much integration can be expected and how much integration is desirable in international water management. The article presents a novel compilation of eighty-six international river basin organizations and examines their degree of integration in terms of three dimensions: membership, substantive scope, and form. More particularly, the article examines the integration problem from an economic perspective, asking whether integration serves the self-interest of the respective riparian states. The empirical evidence highlights the difficulties of integration, as the majority of international river basin organizations remain narrow in membership and scope. Economic considerations suggest that voluntary cooperation in river basins is institutionally demanding and that the degree of integration depends on the problem at hand. Hence, the challenge for international waters management is to search for the economically desirable degree of integration in each case. Keywords: international river basins, Integrated Water Resources Management, Coase theorem, integration. The Problem Some 263 river basins on earth cross international boundaries. (1) Whenever a water resource is international, competing claims over shared waters can generate conflict among riparian countries. In response, a global policy discourse has emerged that promotes Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) as a concept for sustainable resource use. IWRM calls for the integrated management of different water uses within the hydrological confines of a river basin. Proponents of IWRM often advocate the establishment of special river basin organizations. However, a number of social scientists have rejected IWRM as unrealistic with respect to international waters. For example, Frank Marty, basing his predictions on experiences with six bilateral agreements, expects that the majority of international water agreements will be bilateral and narrow in scope and that this is indeed how it should be. (2) John Waterbury warns that the quest for integrated development in international river basins will be elusive and excessively costly, although he concedes that bilateral agreements are not necessarily a solution for multiparty basins. (3) Empirical research suggests that existing arrangements are limited in membership and substantive scope, but large-N analyses are rare and generally limited to the analysis of membership. In terms of membership, Jesse Hamner and Aaron Wolf find that 86 percent of 145 international water treaties concluded since 1945 are bilateral; however, they do not distinguish between bilateral and multilateral basins. (4) According to Ken Conca, Fengshi Wu, and Ciqi Mei, thirty-three of forty-nine international river agreements established in multilateral basins between 1980 and 2000 are bilateral. (5) In terms of substantive scope, Ludwik Teclaff suggests that the majority of international water institutions are single-purpose, but the basis of his analysis is unclear. (6) In terms of form, it is an open question as to what extent riparian states not only conclude agreements but also set up specific river basin organizations. (7) Hence, only vague knowledge is available concerning integration of existing international river basin institutions in terms of substantive scope and form. How much integration can be expected in the management of international waters? How much integration is desirable in terms of membership, substantive scope, and form? In other words, how viable is the IWRM concept for the management of international rivers? To address these questions, I discuss in this article IWRM in the light of empirical evidence and economic considerations. …